ED under Opposition attack: Can the probe agency be bias?
New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) became a household name recently under the Narendra Modi government as the opposition accused the probe agency of selectively hunting down its leaders.
The law enforcement organisation tasked with enforcing economic laws and combating economic crime in India is facing the worst-ever attack on its credibility and intent.
Even as the agency has support from courts, the manner in which it conducts its investigation is questioned every now and then.
An analysis of a chargesheet filed by ED in the infamous TRP scam involving Arnab Goswami appears to be damning for the probe agency.
BestMediaInfo.com’s analysis of the ED chargesheet filed in September 2022, which led to the closure report filed by Mumbai Police last year raises several questions.
The probe first began in the matter with the registration of a first information report by the Mumbai Police on October 6, 2020, in which Republic TV was accused of bribing five panel homes in order to inflate TRPs.
Moreover, the two subsequent chargesheets by the Mumbai Police revealed that the matter went beyond mere fixing of a few meters in 2020 and the rot was much deeper dating back to the birth of Republic TV in 2017.
BestMediaInfo.com broke the incriminating details of regular chats between Arnab Goswami and BARC India’s former CEO Partho Dasgupta which allegedly hinted at a larger conspiracy to keep Republic TV at No. 1 rank from the first week of its launch.
The Mumbai Police chargesheet alleged the larger conspiracy on three key allegations – rampant usage of Dual LCN by Republic which is declared illegal by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India; manipulations of rankings of channels on the basis of Acquisory’s consulting report; and the alleged incriminating digital evidences in the form of chats.
